things fall apart
by subtextual
Summary: "No one really seems to know the underbelly of the truth, only its glory. And the truth is always glorious." - A look over Kakashi's very messed up life.


You used to think dying was just staying asleep for a very long time.

That when little girls exploded in front of your eyes in little pieces that rained down on you and matted your hair red and wet, it just meant they were going back to sleep. Because before you are alive, you are asleep. And when you are sleeping, you are not really alive. Because alive means you have to be awake, so when you aren't awake, you are dead.

Father used to tell you that people went away when they died, and once when you were four, you found a rotting corpse of a man who'd had his eyes picked out by birds and was growing into the ground. The stench was the worst thing you'd ever smelled and you remember asking your father how people can grow into the earth, because they aren't trees. And only trees take root like that, or so you used to think.

So dying is falling asleep and growing into the ground, because that is what dead people do.

They fall down and eventually come apart.

Become part of the earth.

You decided you didn't want to grow into the ground, and didn't want Father to either. Because if Father grew into the ground that meant he would go away. And even though he never played ball with you or told you bedtime stories the way you've heard other parents did, and only ever made you train, Father was the only person you had. And if Father grew into the ground and went away, you wouldn't have anyone anymore.

You once heard the lady who sold fish talking with her husband, saying that kids without parents were all lost causes.

You didn't want to be a lost cause, so you tried very hard to be a good shinobi so Father wouldn't die and grow into the ground.

Because you can try and dig but you don't think digging will wake him up if he dies. You haven't seen anyone come back from the dead before, even if you've seen a lot of people die.

So you are running because Minato-sensei is in trouble and you need to help him. Because if you don't run fast enough, Minato-sensei will die and you won't be able to dig him out. And the sky is red because there's too much blood in the air, and you think it might be because everyone around you is dying. And maybe you'll die too if you stop running.

You can't dig yourself out so you don't stop, even when a genin just three feet away loses his head and takes root in the ground.

It was Yuuhi's ninth birthday three days ago, and even though you are only six, you still received an invitation. You didn't like the cake because it was too sweet, so you gave your cake to Yuuhi, who smiled and patted you on the head. You didn't like being patted on the head by a genin when you were a chuunin, and wondered how Yuuhi would like it if you patted him on the head instead.

But you won't ever find out because Yuuhi's head has rolled to a stop in front of you and his eyes are open in shock and bleeding from the corners. And there's a smile cut across his face from cheek to cheek, and the skin is flapping like it wants to say something, but you can't stop to listen because if you do you'll lose your head too.

So you run, because that is the only thing you can do, and everywhere you look, genin and chuunin a few years older than you are dying. They are too small and the enemy is too large and too many. And you think if you stop you might be able to help them stop dying. You don't think they want to go to sleep for a very long time or grow into the ground, because they aren't old enough to want to stay asleep for that long.

But Minato-sensei needs your help.

So you don't stop.

You don't stop and there is a mountain in front of you that wants to tear you down. Step on you and push you into the ground. Make you root there too, like everyone else. And you are scared and think you're going to die but you're flying now with your tanto in your hand and the mountain is erupting with blood.

You don't stop to see how it'll take root.

And there is blood running, running, running across the floor like the blood that runs when you go on missions and slice your enemy in all the right places, and Father is lying on the ground. His guts are all spilling out and you don't know how the lightning did it or why and you can't breathe because you are staring and Father is on the ground and he is on the ground and people who fall down like that always grow into the ground because that is what death is. But Father is not allowed to die because you are only eight and you don't know what to do Father can't die he can't die you won't let him won't let him won't let him.

So you crawl onto the floor and into all the sticky slimy blood and pick up your Father's guts in your small hands and try to put them back in. Because if you put them back in Father will wake up again. He is sleeping right now and he is inside the house so the ground can't chase him yet. He won't grow into the ground if you put everything back where it's supposed to belong.

You are trying not to cry because ninjas who cry break rule number twenty-five but the tears are just falling and the guts are slippery and wet when you try to put them back in. And you know if you just put it all back where Father wants you to and cleans up the blood so there's nothing left on the floor, put it all back and hold it there in place, Father will stop looking at you in that disappointed blank way that sees nothing because there's nothing in Father's eyes anymore. Not even clouds. The lightning came and took it away. But you know if you just do this, Father will sit up and pat you on the head and say that you've been a good boy. Because that is what good boys do, they do what their Fathers want them to.

Your mask is all wet because it's raining inside, and the rain tastes salty and hot and you can't see very well as strange little sounds come out of your mouth. You shake your head and work faster, fingers flying to try and press the guts into the gaping wound where all the blood is pooling.

But every time you put it in, it slips back out between your fingers.

Maybe that's all you were ever good at in the end: watching living things slip from your grip.

You were always too busy ending life or watching it die to know how to hold on. Your hands ached when you tried, with the memory of too many lives buried or lost under rocks, in the forests or in the shadows of the night, never memorialized.

(It's the silence that's the most dangerous part of all.

You have it down to an art, swallowing down the screams that come in the middle of the night when no one is listening. They are all so busy living their lives that they don't notice the loudness of the quiet, how wide it goes and what happens when it fills up a man that has nothing left inside because he is not a man. There were no men left in the world you lived in, except for the ones who signed the papers and controlled the money; and children from your world are never quite children, when they are spending their little lives running towards sharpened knives and living on all the legends of unremembered but not forgotten warriors that slip through the midst of the night. Their stories are told only through whispers, too many secrets curling the tongue.

No one really seems to know the underbelly of the truth, only its glory. _And the truth is always glorious._

What is never told, always left out of the telling, is the silence, the sickness of it. The quiet way you all go mad living a life that is not a life but a continued existence of blood running, running, running out of broken bodies left behind under falling rocks without proper burial, holding your tongues and never speaking. Swallowing down the memories of him and her and the rest of them left behind, until there's no more room left to swallow anymore because a body can only handle so much filling before it bursts. From the pressure or from the feeling of losing a little more of yourself each time you cut out parts of you to make room for what you have to swallow.

So you keep cutting and swallowing until there's nothing left.)

The mission was supposed to be easy.

Infiltrate, assassinate, exfiltrate. Cut open the belly of a shark that had been too greedy, eating up the lives and small fortunes of families in a village still trying to stand up on its feet after a civil war. Somewhere along the lines, he'd taken a bite out of the wrong family. Pissed off the wrong people, who decided the only just method of retribution was his death.

You're not sure what went wrong, but something did. Someone fucked up along the way. Didn't account for a kid getting mixed up with it, and now there is a little boy crying on his knees, tiny hands reaching for his father whose guts have spilled out shiny and slick over the tatami mats of their living room floor.

You numbly watch as the boy crawls over, picks up his father's guts in his hands and tries to put them back in. (No survivors they said, no survivors, but this boy is no more than eight and his body shakes with sobs, trembles so much his father's guts keep sliding right out of his tiny hands.) Maybe he thinks he can save his father from growing into the ground if he puts it all back where it belongs.

The blade slices faster than you can say stop.

The boy's head rolls to a stop at your feet, eyes filled with tears and accusation. His hands will never finish their task now.

"You didn't have to do that, Crow."

"Wolf-taichou," says the thirteen year old who looks at you calmly through the holes cut out for eyes in a face that is not his own, black commas swimming in a pool of red. "The orders were clear. No survivors."


End file.
